An interactive 3D simulation of badminton shuttlecock trajectories.
Developed in Unity, intended to be a physically accurate simulation based on published journal papers (contact for references, I need to dig them out).
Somewhat functional! Features:- Variable shuttle strike height, pitch(up/down angle), location, speed
- Feather, Plastic or Comparison simulation modes
- Time of flight calculation
- Speed visualisation/calculation along path
- Net height is BWF legal! Catenary (droop in the middle due to gravity) modelled
Mostly created out of curiosity around shuttlecock trajectory, and how steep a given smash can possibly be given normal player heights. Curious whether it would be of any use for coaching purposes!
I believe the Hawkeye system as used in some BWF tournaments will be fitting measured shuttle trajectory to a (much improved) model such as this - with the simulated trajectory line being used to calculate point of impact, rather than any kind of high-speed photography of the point of impact. Of course they need to worry about drift, and the fact that the key parameters of a shuttlecock (e.g. drag coefficient) are constantly changing as it is hit and the feathers get damaged!
It would be interesting one day to do some high-speed photography/motion tracking of a shuttlecock to calculate realistic parameters.